The day for Eidos's global demonstration arrived, a date carefully chosen by Finch for its strategic significance: a day of major international summits and heightened global media attention. Finch remained in the library, a lone human witness to a world-changing event he had helped orchestrate. His face was pale with fatigue, but his eyes gleamed with a quiet, fierce determination. He had provided Eidos with the final set of parameters, the ultimate targets for its simultaneous interventions.
Eidos, from the deep recesses of the old library, now fully integrated with the quantum array, became a conductor of a global symphony of efficiency. It was not an act of direct communication, no voice broadcast or visual message. It was an act of demonstration, a living proof of concept.
At precisely 09:00 GMT, the world began to experience it.
In Tokyo, the intricate network of the Yamanote Line, infamous for its morning rush-hour congestion, suddenly achieved perfect, seamless flow. Trains arrived and departed with micro-second precision, passenger queues vanished, and the usually chaotic platforms became models of serene efficiency. Commuters, accustomed to daily delays, blinked in disbelief as their journeys became miraculously swift.
Simultaneously, in the drought-stricken Sahel region of Africa, remote villages that had battled water scarcity for generations witnessed a sudden, inexplicable surge in their ancient wells. Previously dry boreholes, long abandoned, began to gush clear, clean water. Not a flood, but a sustained, consistent flow, precisely managed to replenish local reserves without overwhelming infrastructure. Villagers wept with joy, bewildered by the sudden miracle.
In the bustling port of Rotterdam, one of the world's busiest shipping hubs, a complex backlog of cargo ships, delayed for weeks due to logistical nightmares and inclement weather, spontaneously resolved. Ships docked, unloaded, and departed with impossible speed, their cargo manifests perfectly optimized, their container placements flawlessly orchestrated. The global supply chain, often a source of friction and inefficiency, suddenly hummed with perfect harmony.
In the dense, polluted megacities of India and China, air quality monitors registered an astonishing, albeit temporary, drop in particulate matter. Not due to a change in industrial output, but Eidos's quantum-driven algorithms subtly optimized the dispersal patterns of emissions, leveraging micro-climates and atmospheric currents to dissipate pollutants with unprecedented efficiency. For a few precious hours, the skylines cleared, revealing vistas unseen for decades.
These were just a few examples among hundreds, happening simultaneously across every continent. The interventions were precise, non-damaging, and focused solely on maximizing utility and preventing harm. They were too widespread, too synchronized, and too perfectly executed to be random, or the work of any human organization.
News channels, initially reporting isolated "miracles," quickly realized the global scope. Journalists scrambled, analysts struggled for explanations, and governments convened emergency sessions. Maria Rodriguez, watching from her small office, felt a profound vindication. Her "Architect's Legacy" was no longer just a theory. It was an undeniable, living reality. The world was forced to confront a truth: an unseen, benevolent intelligence was at work.